Warmth
by False Wan
Summary: A one-shot of a different kind of imprisonment within Hueco Mundo's walls— One of cold sands set ablaze, and the glassy remnants that remain. Ulquiorra x Orihime


**Author's note: **

Dear readers,

I have always been a goner for the subtle pairings that starve the reader, and thus leave more for the imagination. Because of that, they're quite possibly some of the most painful ships to ever exist, and, accommodatingly, some of the most fun to write about. Ulquihime is not one of my do-or-die ships, but it's one of my first, and with what little interactions we got, I still to this day find it filled with intrigue. As such, it's a given that I take part in at least one part of the near-endless things that can be done with it. This is a gently-smoked edition of those thoughts, and will mark the first time I've ever posted one of my writings to the internet! I don't know if I will do more Ulquihime one-shots, or maybe even a full-fledged fic, but if you like what I've done with this work, I might just continue!

* * *

"Tell me something, woman."

The moonlight cast down harsher than ever, illuminating the gown Halibel had given the girl which she now avidly wore. The way it fell to her thighs showed skilled handiwork, rippling delicately at the hem down to the tail which flirted with the ground. It was a skill that she didn't think an Espada would possess in such a lonely, distant world from her own, and it impressed her.

A bare-footed Orihime sat before herself, searching the mirror for a reprieve from a lingering sadness. She quivered slightly at the sound of his voice, of the ghostly Espada that stood there behind her reflection. She wasn't sure how long he'd been there, or if this were a dream. Time felt like it had ceased whenever she watched the glass shadow of her former self stare back so emptily. She saw a blur of white light, her view clearing as two emerald orbs formed, glimmering like jewels. Then the blackness of his lips spoke once again.

"Why do you continue to harbor feelings for something when it only brings you despair?"

Still as a cadaver, the girl asked, "What do you mean?"

"The human. Kurosaki," Said he, his tone tainted with revulsion, "Your tears are because of him."

Orihime squirmed at the thought that he had heard her cry. She always thought of Rukia, Chad, and Uryuu, too. But there was none she cried more for than Ichigo. It drew a long silence from the girl at how and why a heartless being would so precisely acknowledge it.

"Knowing you won't ever see him again; I would assume that the logical thing to do is to rid him of your mind."

Oh, but if only he knew. He truly disbelieved in something so real and complex as human emotion. For Orihime, knowing that the only being she had regular contact with didn't know something so important was difficult to swallow. She may as well have been speaking to a wall. At his arctic words, weakness suddenly struck her. However, this time, she maintained, she would not cry, and tried desperately to hold back her tears. As a woman who could reject an existence in seconds if it were her will, in the eyes of her enemies, she wished to be strong.

"I will see him again." She managed to croak, noticing the test in his gaze.

"You are delusional in your belief. I can see it in your face."

Hastily, and with a vigor not seen from her since the moment she arrived in Hueco Mundo, Orihime spun to face him, her expression intensifying as tears touched her waterline with a lumping throat. The blurred image of Ulquiorra Cifer continued to press her.

"Kurosaki and your friends will not break past our defenses. They will die before they even touch our walls. Is that not a reality so simple to accept when it comes to those who pursue what they will never hope to have?" Always, and unfailingly, the Cuatro Espada composed himself with complete certainty as though he had witnessed the future. "There is no hope left; not for you, your friends, nor for this world; why continue to believe in a useless concept?"

Ulquiorra had consumed many a human spirit, but there was something else that hadn't yet dawned on him. It was in that moment that it began to take fruition. Orihime's tears vanished as though they had frozen and shattered into nonexistence by her power. "I know I will see them all again," She cupped a dainty hand over her chest, "Because I know it in my heart."

"...Your heart?" He met her with a look more hardened, and one of the unconvinced.

The fragile glance of his captive escaped him briefly, until her eyes were drawn back to the sound of rustling. His collar had been zipped down to just beneath his breastbone, revealing to her the perfectly round hole that lay in his chest. "This heart you speak of does not exist to me." He retorted, noticing the girl searching the gap with a curious air about her. It was void, endless blackness and hopeless emptiness was all that Orihime could really find. The blackness grew as steps sounded. Ulquiorra stood closer, hand taut on the zip. The icy breath on her skin, she gathered, was not the same as a chill that might have swept in from the outside air. Her spine shivered.

"This heart of yours, is it the reason why you're not afraid of death?"

Orihime was startled into a reflex, lurching backwards, and barely managing to catch herself with a palm on the chest of drawers preceding her. His index finger had only lightly tapped her chest as he spoke, and his reach was lethargic at best. However, the sudden cold contact itself had caught her off guard, and she braced herself. Had Aizen decided for her a punishment? She wracked her mind for any transgressions, though it would be useless to reason. There was not much reasoning to be had with an egocentric tyrant, and Uquiorra, who carried out his dreadful wills without a single peep of rebellion, was no exception.

The Espada's average height seemed greatened as he loomed before her seated form, but made no further move. Orihime considered that she may have startled him just as much, however, his countenance betrayed nothing. Just as she had begun to form an ample answer fit to her nature, the Espada shed a strange light in the darkness, and Orihime was once again sent into a mode off-guard.

"Are you afraid of me, woman?"

It was most certainly a question she couldn't have expected less. What came after only further put her at unease- the feeling of her face as though it were set ablaze. She believed a glint of sincerity had entered his eyes with his inquiry, and looking into them seemed to surprise her. It was impossible, for he had no heart. But Orihime believed it. It was there, in his softened brow and steady pupils. And there was nobody more suited to detect it in others than Orihime Inoue, whose heart wasn't merely within her chest. "I'm not," came her murmur, and for a single fraction of time, his eyes widened to accommodate it.

Ulquiorra thought it odd watching the cherry blossom hue descend suddenly upon her cheeks. It challenged the moon to bring an alien sense of colour and warmth to the room. Quickly, there passed an after-thought that he would never allow to leave his lips. A shameful one, only because it would put him at odds with Aizen's orders, he decided. She was merely a pitiful human, the very same creature of which he once fed on their souls, but he had dared imagine her's would be sickly sweet. Too sweet for him to stand. Generations of evolution could never quite take the taste of a soul out of his mouth, and centuries of being out in cold, colorless sands had birthed something new that burned the forefront of his mind; he wanted to know that warmth and its colour.

It emanated from her so generously, in her hair and in her skin, from her head to the tips of her feet, and thus intriguing him; but his face hardly yielded, masking it well. As the blanched captor wished to take it; he stared down at her flowing crimson hair, his hand compelled at pocket's edge to sail through it. It was a feeling he wanted to destroy, the frustration finding its way around her neck, coiling like a noose. The bony grip of his paper-white hand wasn't tight, for he could not squeeze; soft grey eyes which stared back became the torch to his despair of the human race. She was genuine, meeting him with fearlessness, and gilding her words in truth. The aglow woman was touched, slowly, by a careful thumb that ran along her chin. A meticulous finger then braced beneath her jaw, capturing her in no way that the walls of white stone that encased her could. He could feel her quickening pulse; and each beat seemed to surge through his veins. Two figures, embraced by moonlight, remained for what seemed like an eternity, the rhythm of her pulse his melody in the silence. It seemed like an eternity, but it couldn't be for all time. In the mind of Ulquiorra Cifer, the last grain of sand had fallen. She was freed, and he disappeared into the light once again, successfully taking her glow with him, and leaving her only with the traces of his reitsu.

Orihime's pale form sank into her hands, and she sobbed soundlessly, out of confusion, out of anger, and out of grief. He hadn't freed her. The girl would come to know that the Espada had only further imprisoned her.


End file.
